It's great to see a game that isn't about medieval or Renaissance merchants puttering about the Mediterranean, and Pergamon certainly delivers (although it is set in the region). In the game, players are archaeologists, who seek fame by creating the best exhibits from items excavated from the ancient Greek city of Pergamon (in modern day Turkey) and bring them back to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. In a nod to realism, players are also competing for scarce research funding that they must use to finance their work.

The game is played on an attractive board with three main areas, the research funding track, the excavation itself, and the Pergamon Museum. There is also a calendar that forms the game clock with reminders about scoring. The game includes cardboard artifact tiles, nifty little scoring chits made up to looks like tickets, and cardboard coins.

At the heart of the game is the research funding and turn order track. Each of the spaces depicts a claim for research funding and a permission to dig down to a certain level. Each turn, two research funding cards are laid out face down, depicting either a chest or a bag. Bags yield 1-5 coins and chests yield 5-8, so the two card backs provide a range of possible funding values for the current range.

In turn order, players choose an empty space for their playing figure. Priority goes to the spaces on the right which ask for the fewest coins. Earlier spaces with the same coin value also place restrictions on how deep the player's excavation can go, although the first space guarantees the first excavation at any level of the dig as well as no money at all. Anyone choosing this space needs some coins saved up from previous turns.

Once each player has placed their figure, research funds are distributed. The face-down cards are turned over and the total number of coins are distributed among the players, beginning at the right with the smallest claims. If the coins run out before all claims are paid, the under- or un-paid players were too greedy and receive nothing this turn. If there are any coins left over, they are given as a bonus to the last (left-most) player.

The jockeying for position, trying to figure out whether to go ahead or after another player, whether this will get you more or less coins and trading off the available dig levels against all this means that choosing a space can be hard. Of course, you only need to do it 12 times in the whole game, and there are only three possible ranges of funding, so everyone quickly develops a good feel for the optimum spot, so the player pieces are usually not spread out too far each turn.

Once funds are distributed, we turn our attention to the dig itself. The deeper levels of the excavation yield the most interesting artifacts. At the start of each turn, a pile of 5 new artifact tiles is taken from the calendar and sorted by order of dates and then placed into the excavation display, one per row, with oldest and thus most valuable at the bottom. Over the course of the game, rows will hold different numbers of tiles, indicating how recently they were dug up. This means that the 5th level will often not be the most valuable level to excavate, depending on how many tiles were left elsehwere on previous turns. In the following example, most players would be trying to figure out how to get row 3 or 4.

Players now each take their turns, again in right to left order along the research funding display, with the players asking for (but perhaps not getting) the least research funding going first. They may mine a single level of the mine at a depth up to maximum indicated by their chosen research funding space. The excavation costs a number of coins equal to the depth, but the player receives all the tiles currently on display in that row.

As soon as they collect any newly excavated tiles (or pass), players can choose to exhibit some of their finds in the museum. Exhibits are formed of a chain of tiles with complete artifacts (two matching halves) at each tile boundary. The date of each artifact is made up of the large century part of the date from one half and the small years part from the other. An exhibit's value is the sum of the century part of the dates, so in the example below, exhibit 1 is worth 13 points while exhibit 2 is worth only 8. Players may also spend up to 3 coins lying around to polish up the exhibits; each coin spent increases the exhibition value by 1 point. It's very often worth spending a few coins getting your exhibit level with or just above another player's, so it will stay in the museum for longer.

In practice, assembling exhibits isn't that easy. While there are only four types of artifact, each tile has two different halves, so a complete exhibit chain needs to have several matches in a row. It's inevitable that you'll end up swapping the tiles around, trying to find a chain that gets all high-value century halves into play.

A corresponding exhibit marker in the player colour is placed in the appropriate space in the museum. Players receive a single victory point for each new exhibition and, thanks to the fickle public preference for novelty, all existing exhibitions in the museum with the same or lower value are moved one space down.

If a player has more than 3 tiles remaining in their area at the end of their turn, they must pay a storage of 1 coin for each 3 extra tiles (rounded up). If they can't or won't pay, extra tiles are discarded from the game. In practice, paying for storage doesn't happen so much with four players, but it heavily penalises players who are trying to save up to create the perfect exhibit. Typically really great items use up all your available money in excavation costs to get, leaving little left over for storage.

Once all the players have finished their turns, the turn order markers are returned to their spaces, in reverse order of excavation, so the player who perhaps received no money this turn can choose more wisely in the next. (Full turn order is actually a variant, but one I'd strongly recommend)

Four of the 12 turns are highlighted on the calendar as the dates of special exhibitions in the museum. At the end of these four turns, players receive points for each exhibits currently on display in the museum, according to the small number under each museum space. Each of the four scoring rounds also has a 2-point bonus for the oldest currently-exhibited example of a particular item. After each large exhibit, all the pieces in the museum move down 3-5 spaces. Exhibits left in the museum quickly become far less valuable, forcing players back to their digging.

Valuable exhibitions are where the bulk of the points in game come from, so it becomes an question of timing in when to get your exhibitions out so they aren't pushed too far down the museum, but without having to pay too much to store the pieces. It's also helpful to go last on an exhibition turn to avoid your exhibits being pushed down too many steps by other players.

The game ends after the 12th turn with a final grand exhibit where the oldest three objects still on display are given bonus points. The player with the most points wins the game, with the oldest object as a tie-breaker.

Pergamon also supports play with just 2 players by including a automatic tomb-raider. At the beginning of each round, depending on the funds cards shown, the tomb raider is placed on the most desirable research funding space. It collects funds like a normal player and, in normal excavation order, excavates the most valuable level it can afford and steal all the tiles there out of the game.

It doesn't sound like a complex robo-player, but in practice it's astonishingly effective. It collects far too many coins and repeatedly savages the excavation display, just as the pieces you desperately needed appear. There are a few more artifacts available in 2p, and a few more coins (mostly used to pay storage), but the pace and feel of the game is still excellent with only 2 players, provided no-one nearby minds you shouting in frustration at a small black wooden piece.

I've really enjoyed playing Pergamon. It's a good medium-light weight game with a few nice subtleties that plays in a little under an hour (a bit faster with 2). The theme is appealing and well meshed with the gameplay and it has great components full of great little touches like unique artwork on the victory point chits or artifacts. As a classic Euro, the calendar game clock keeps things ticking along and puts real pressure on the players to get their exhibitions into the museum before it is too late.

I would love to add another archaelogy themed medium light game to the collection, but I am wondering about downtime?

How is the downtime for 2p? 3p? 4p?

Actually downtime is really good with any player count. Someone will occasionally agonise over how much risk to take when placing a worker, or frantically rearrange a stubborn collection to optimise it, but both are minute-long tasks at worst. (I admit to having done both)

Things we found to help a little:1. working out the ranges of values for the three funding types in advance. (2-8, 6-12, 10-16)2. while someone is playing, the other players pointing out their max/min funding at the point they're considering.3. Have the person nearest the museum responsible for all the shifting down so that it always happens immediately.

Once you figure out order of excavation, almost everyone had figured out which were the best dig levels to go for (And which they would be permitted to/could afford) so the game moves along at a very nice pace.